@Vornaskotti - yeah. I have a memory, I have no idea where from, of a picture of a spacesuit with a foil balloon coming out of its back, showing reentry heat patterns. I think it was in one of those world of the future type books from the 70s, but it's always stuck in my mind and I wondered if it had ever been tested.

ITV has admitted that This Morning was the victim of a hoax following a story about a new celebrity sperm bank.CEO Dan Richards appeared on This Morning on Tuesday to discuss FameDaddy, the "first celebrity sperm donor service".

@sneak046: "We have not yet encountered our cosmic neighbors because they are indistinguishable from their native ecology" is a nice idea, but given we haven't yet found any native ecologies either, I'm not sure it makes much sense.

“Our world is faced with both existential threats of unprecedented seriousness (such as the environment) and huge opportunities (such as for scientific and social progress). We believe that our ability to face the threats and opportunities of the coming century will be profoundly affected by how well, and soon, we can master the art of programming our planet’s emerging global brain.”

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is one example of a new mass space vehicle that could operate in the UK if the rules were right. Yet, absurdly, the whole of Europe is at risk of missing out because we cannot agree a regulatory framework that will allow the necessary reusable aircraft-type launchers to operate here in Britain.

Today, if a few member states obstruct a new technology, such as the hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – used for the extraction of shale gas, they can have a disproportionate effect at the EU level. Whatever the reason, economic advance is threatened.

But it was his comments to reporters after the event at WTTW Channel 11 that sparked the most attention. Walsh said that medical advances had rendered it unnecessary to ever perform an abortion to save a mother’s life.

“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance,” Walsh declared.

Asked then if he was saying it was never medically necessary to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded: “Absolutely, yes.”

Doctors at Zhongshan Hospital successfully removed a dildo from the intestines of a 30-year-old man, who had inserted it into his body to enhance sexual pleasure with his wife.The dildo, measuring 23 centimeters in length and 8 centimeters in diameter, somehow got stuck in his intestines, doctors at Zhongshan Hospital in Xuhui District said yesterday.The dildo was inside the man for five days before he went to the hospital last Friday, when doctors failed to remove it.